Is CMBB similar to Close Combat series?

[Panzer_General179]

Are Combat Mission and Close Combat similar to each other? which one is better? :eek:

[Warren Peace]

Close Combat uses real time, while CM uses a wego format. CM has a larger scope, cooler graphics, and does a much better job of modeling all elements (vehicles, infantry, and artillery) than CC.

[Bruno Weiss]

Eeeeekkk!!!

Quick Margret grab the glasses and china, I'll close the shutters, Son you get the muskets out and start loading and keep a watch out that window. They'll be coming any second now.

[Captain Wacky]

Originally posted by Panzer_General179:

Are Combat Mission and Close Combat similar to each other? which one is better? :eek:

The major difference between the two is that CC is RT, while CM is simultaneous turn-based. Aside from that distinction, CM has better graphics, better sound, better AI, more depth, more realism, etc.

CC was great back in 1996, but the CM series is better than it by leaps and bounds

[Nick Schieben]

In CC you can win the battle of Moscow as the Germans and even play the victorious company who did it, and also drive drunken panzers around the streets of Stalingrad. I'd sell you my copy but I got rid of it at EB within a week of being disgusted with the first (sic) patch. A stinker and my last foray into RTS.

Regards

[Michael Dorosh]

Close Combat is done more from a gameplay point of view than a realism point of view.

Some of the concerns with Close Combat III (the Russian Front version) -

Force mixes are wildly armour-heavy and unrealistic. In a typical CC III game most you might get two platoons of infantry, usually much less and usually with several vehicles.

Units are not organized into realistic command structures - there are rules for leaders and command radius, but the game lets you (demands, really) mix one squad of air force troops, another of SS troops, throw in a Pz IV, a Pz V, and a couple of halftracks...

The maps are small and while you can modify them with third party stuff, the in game selection is only a handful of different terrain. Replayability is thus restricted to the forces you can choose from, which are also small in comparison to CM.

The 2D maps of CC are very hard to see Line of Sight, elevation, and other essential game play information on. They strove for photo realism, but at the expense of playability. Though since you only get the same two dozen maps for every game, I suppose you'd get to know them well. This wouldn't be so bad (it worked for Squad Leader, after all) if the maps were large, or had more than one decent attack route. They aren't, and they don't.

Conversely, CM has a full blown scenario and map editor, with several hundred different units to choose from, all arranged in historically accurate groups, with maps up to (what is it - 27 square kilometres?) in size. The 3D world lets you see lines of sight and elevations much more clearly.

This is just off the top of my head.

CC3 has a half assed campaign mode, which CM lacks, but house rules are being presented by many authors to simulate this sort of thing.

[akdavis]

Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

Force mixes are wildly armour-heavy and unrealistic. In a typical CC III game most you might get two platoons of infantry, usually much less and usually with several vehicles.

Units are not organized into realistic command structures - there are rules for leaders and command radius, but the game lets you (demands, really) mix one squad of air force troops, another of SS troops, throw in a Pz IV, a Pz V, and a couple of halftracks...

CC5 improved on this by making force structure more realistic. Unfortunately, unrealistic airstrikes and artillery support were also added by this point in the series. Otherwise, all the problems listed with CC3 are the same.

[SurlyBen]

The part about CMBB looking better than the CC games might need some clarification. IMO, the average CC map looks prettier than the average CMBB map, provided you keep the scale of both the same. The CC maps are hand painted and to a casual observer this will make them look better than CMs more modular maps... Being able to see the indivual soldiers gives graphical points to CC as well.

However. CM tanks look way better than CC tanks, CM is 3D, and a well designed CM map can approach (and surpass, IMO) a well designed CC map for shear jawdropping beauty (some of clubfoot's maps come to mind). You just can't do panoramic vistas in CC.

Of course, You can probably pick up any version of CC for discount prices these days, so why not get both?

[Nippy]

...and also drive drunken panzers around the streets of Stalingrad.

You better not be mocking the Drunken Hobo Tank drivers! The Union reps will hear of this! :mad:

On a more serious note, I became bored with the original CC when I figured out that the game could just about play itself. Line your troops up along the hedges, hit the start button, and go grab a soda.

I find that the CC serie's latest re-encarnation (you know that game) suffers from the same problem as well.

To its credit though, CC did introduce things like moral, combinded arms tactics, and some realisim into the RTS genre.

[Matias]

Everyone makes good points but forgot one other key difference: in CC (at least in A Bridge Too Far which is the last one I got) you can win a battle by parking one hidden soldier right on top of an objective despite the fact that the rest of your forces have been routed, or that you can spend half an hour wasting your time and ammo hunting for one last half squad of the enemy that won't surrender!

Don't get me wrong, I loved CC at the time. Its been surrpassed by CM IMHO and if you take the time to learn it you'll just be learning less realistic tactics. Of course I play these games as a competative/interactive/play-with-little-toy-vehicles/ultimately-historical-learning-excersizes, so your interests may guide you to different conclusions.

[Silvio Manuel]

Originally posted by Nippy:

On a more serious note, I became bored with the original CC when I figured out that the game could just about play itself. Line your troops up along the hedges, hit the start button, and go grab a soda.

Repeat after me:

I am not going to try that on CM.

I am not going to try that on CM.

I am not going to try that on CM. (!!!)

[murpes]

Originally posted by Panzer_General179:

Are Combat Mission and Close Combat similar to each other? which one is better? :eek:

Depends where you're coming from - if all you've played up to now is Unreal and Tomb Raider then yes, they're similar. As everyone has mentioned before, Close Combat is real time like War Craft and Combat Mission uses the invovative wego method ... download the demo and try it. CM is also in 3D and a hell of a lot more fun.

That wasn't a bust about the Unreal and Tomb Raider crowd - I'm pretty much one of them. I tried CC after CM, hoping CC would be more like CM. I was very disappointed. CM strives to be very realist, probably more so than CC, however the CM engine is flexible enough that you don't have to be a champion military stragist to play it either - I'm certainly not. Although some would argue that CMBO is more forgiving than CMBB for the novices.

[Col Deadmarsh]

Okay...I need to come to CC's defense here. Well, at least CC2. I won't defend the others because I thought they sucked.

Close Combat 2: A Bridge Too Far is still to me an amazing game. The only reason I don't play it anymore is because CM takes up all my free time nowadays. If I were a millionaire and could sit on my butt 24/7, I'd still be playing both.

The real-time aspect of CC2 can't be done by CM because CM works on a larger scale and you wouldn't have time to control all your men. CC also portrays the individual soldier better because it's on a 1:1 ratio. You really feel it when just one of your soldiers dies. I remember having end-of-the-battle skirmishes where it would come down to just a few soldiers on each side. Now those are great battles! Each of those last men has an ammo count and you have to make sure you don't empty it too early or they'll surrender. I think that's what I loved the most about CC2, the portrayal of the individual soldier. Only a RTS game on that small of a level can do that.

CC2 had its share of problems though. Tank drivers acted drunk--driving the AFV's into buildings which you couldn't get them unstuck from. Damn that was maddening. I remember many times screaming out loud at the game when this happened. CM's tanks don't do this and they actually go where you tell them to. Of course, the Hetzerflammen in CM just doesn't have the same theropeudic effect on oneself when torching men like the one in CC2 does. God, I used to love those things...

[Mud]

CC2:ABTF provides entertaining moments such as one of your tanks taking a wild, unprovoked detour into the side of a building, and getting stuck; plus an AI that cheated rather badly re: supply rules without the manual bothering to mention this; and mind-numbingly repetitive play, e.g. having to slaughter Poles on the first Driel map again and again and again.

CM maps, e.g. CMBO w/ Magua's Normandy terrain mods and Panzertruppen's buildings, can be quite lovely from a view-3 or view-4 level. The view and WEGO system also mean that you have far better control over your forces; you don't have to worry about clicking speed, nor do you have to guess much about elevations or intervening terrain. CM's equipment tables and unit modeling probably are also much more realistic; in CC2, for instance, Panzerfausts were probably TOO ubiquitious, while grenades were on the low side.

CM's developers also appear to care more about bugs. Atomic/Microsoft, for instance, didn't seem to give a damn about known errors in their terrain spreadsheet that caused certain terrain (bushes/shrubs, IIRC) to block shots far higher than they should... and they released CC2 with much more obvious bugs, like how the AI mortars used the direct-fire code (it's obvious when it drops mortar rounds directly on the heads of your individual soldiers), or how one could put anti-tank guns in the top floors of buildings.

[KG_SSpoom]

I feel obliated to stick up for CC series.

I enjoy CC3 and still play 1 of the many mods for it, plus CC3 has literally 100s of custom made maps. True the game has its limits, but it is still one of the best small scale wargames I have ever played. But once you get into playing CMBB you wont be playing much CC. CMBB is so much deeper that it will keep you from reaching for CC3. Try both, CC3 has a ton of custom mods/maps and now even user made campaigns and ops. CC3 is fun when you only have 45 minutes to kill and want a "Quick game".

But if you have to chose 1 or the other get CMBB.

You wont regret it.(especially if you are a grog)

the scope and scale of CMBB is mind boggling at times but truly awesome.

[Sgt. Steiner]

The thing I disliked most about CC is that top-down only view. And needing a magnifying glass to see those tiny little soldiers. CM's 3D, in your face graphics are infinitely more preferable, IMO.

The use of real-world physics instead of tables is much better too..

[pavlov]

I have to say one positive thing for CC2, in spite of all the criticisms stated above (which I agree with BTW so you don't need to flame me). The makers of CC2 did a great job portraying historically accurate maps. This was one of my favorite things about CC2 (in addition to being able to identify with the individual soldier). I have seen era aerial photos of a couple of these locations and they are almost identical to the CC2 maps. However, the problem with CC2 maps is that they do not match the scale of the units, either graphically or in terms of historical OOB. It always bothered me that many CC2 battles are played out with dozens of men over an area that historically involved hundreds of men.

With the CM series, you can count on having a more accurate OOB but you never know what you're going to get with the map in terms of historicity--regardless of whether the scenario maker designates the battle as "historical"--afterall, one arm-chair-general's concept of historical is another's fiction. For example, I thought the CMBO Arnhem map to be fairly closely modeled on the real thing, but when I took a look at the Nijmegen map I was so disgusted with it that I never could bring myself to play the battle.

Luckily with CMBB, I am so clueless about the depicted locations that I have no way of knowing if the maps are correct--therefore I am too oblivious to be bothered by it.

[Nolloff]

Originally posted by Panzer_General179:

... which one is better? :eek:

You´ve ended up asking this question in a place where it´s pretty obvious what the majority of answers will look like

If "which one is better" means "which is more fun" and not "which is more realistic" etc. etc., you´re probably the only one who can answer it.

I´ve enjoyed playing the CC series tremendeously. I assume you can find them on eBay and maybe CC5 in the bargain bin. I think CC5 and CC2 are still worth getting. But I´d even buy CC6 would someone develop and release it (and before someone organizes a lynch mob: I´m not talking about GICombat).

Nolloff

[pavlov]

You know, another thing I should say about CC2, the most irritating thing about it, that is. When playing allied, and you set up your armor in the safest starting points posible at the very margin of the safe edge of the map--then you click start--and--BAM!--one or two tanks are instantaniously knocked out even before you can move the mouse pointer off the start button. I hate that. It is the only circumstance under which I would allow myself to quit and restart a battle.

[Gaylord Focker]

Originally posted by Panzer_General179:

Are Combat Mission and Close Combat similar to each other? which one is better? :eek:

Has there ever been a worse screen name on this board? No offense man but that just looks awful.

Ok as you were.

[Col Deadmarsh]

As opposed to one like yours, Gaylord?

[Ami]

I would say that my favorite part of the CC series was following the exploits of my individual soldiers as the campaign progressed. It was always so exciting to see them rack up experience and medals.

The other nice thing about the CC series was the campaign system in the CC4 and CC5. Yeah, it wasn't the greatest in the world, but it did a good job of creating a "bigger picture" when playing the individual battles.

Of course, though those two things are nice, they are greatly outweighed by the advantages of CMBO and CMBB, which have already been enumerated by others here. The operations in CMBO and CMBB can also still give a nice experience of handling favorite troops through multiple battles (I'm thinking of the CMBO operation Carentan, my all-time favorite)

Does Panzer_General179 even want to respond to any of this? I think it's interesting how often people ask questions, and lots of others weigh in to answer them, but then the person who asked the question never responds. Anyway...

Ami

[ November 24, 2002, 04:05 AM: Message edited by: Ami ]